Satire In William Goldman's The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is a novel by William Goldman. The book follows the journey of Buttercup and her true love, Westley, as they fight to stay together through many hardships. The book was so popular that it was later adapted into a movie by Rob Reiner. There are a couple of different themes in The Princess Bride. However, the main theme is that love is the most important thing. That theme is shown by satirical elements, such as irony and incongruity, in many ways throughout both the book and movie. One way that the satire is shown is when an old woman yells at Buttercup in her dream. Buttercup walked among her people after getting married to Prince Humperdinck. As she was doing this, an old, crazy woman started to boo at her while everyone

This satirical element shows the main theme of the novel because Weastly is brought back to life after he sees Miracle Max, proving that true love is more powerful than even death. A third way that satire shows the theme in the movie The Princess Bride is when Buttercup marries Prince Humperdink. Westley tries to stop the wedding of Buttercup and Prince Humperdinck after coming back from the dead, but he does not make it in time. Humperdinck speeds up the wedding by making the priest skip parts of their vows, and they end up getting married faster. The Prince does this by demanding to interrupt the Archdean’s speech, saying “‘Again, Holiness, I interrupt in the name of love. Please hurry along as best you can to the end’” (Goldman 310). This is an example of satire because fairytale weddings are meant to be between two people who are deeply in love, which would have been Buttercup and Westley instead of Buttercup and Humperdinck. Additionally, this is an example of the theme because even if Humperdinck and Buttercup do not truly love each other, the Archdean believes they do and he is willing to hurry along the marriage because of their supposed